Jonkonnu bands battle for survival
... as funding, interest in centuries-old tradition dwindle
Published:Sunday | December 22, 2024 | 12:11 AMSashana Small - Staff Reporter
In a small, grubby Two Miles studio, South West St Andrew Jonkonnu Group band leader Rainford Foster sifts through a pile of costumes carelessly draped over a battered sofa.
Each garment, he explains, is a tribute to the resilience of his African ancestors who fought to preserve the Jonkonnu culture despite the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean.
Recognised as one of Jamaica’s oldest dance celebrations, Jonkonnu is primarily performed during the Christmas season, when plantation labour would cease from Christmas Eve until Boxing Day. This period was marked by celebration and joy among the enslaved Africans.
The enslaved would wear costumes reflecting their African heritage, while also mocking the colonial plantation culture.
A Jonkonnu band typically consists of 15 members: 11 dancers and four musicians. And although the characters in each band may vary, the parade usually features iconic figures such as Horse Head, Belly Woman, Pitchy-Patchy, The Devil, the King and Queen, and the Red Indians.
Foster first encountered Jonkonnu as a child when his uncle, Rainford Walters, formed the band he now leads in the late 1950s. His band holds the distinction of performing at Jamaica’s first Independence celebrations in 1962.
As he tries on one of the masks, Foster recalls being terrified of Jonkonnu dancers as a child. Sometimes, he would hide in a box as the group of elaborately dressed dancers paraded past his home during Christmas, their fifes whistling and drums thundering.
As he grew older, his fear turned to curiosity, and he would follow the band through the streets to experience the excitement up close.
“Devil and Devil a fight with dem fork – a dance and a fight. Di Belly Woman dem wid dem one another. Di Cowboy dem a fling whip after one another; di Cowboy dem wid dem hat trick – terrible ting!” he tells The Sunday Gleaner excitedly. “When dem lick dem whip, fire come off a it, fire gash. Dat was the real thing, man.”
Foster’s family history is deeply connected to Jonkonnu’s culture. His late aunt designed the costumes and the band was initially composed mostly of relatives.
After years of being an occasional member, Foster took over the band in his early 20s after his uncle passed the mantle to him. Now, at 60, he said he has done his best to carry on the tradition.
However, over the past three decades, a lack of funding and dwindling interest are threatening the survival of his band, as well as the three other Jonkonnu groups still active in Jamaica.
“Nobody nah really put no resources inna Jonkonnu. Dem seh it weird,” Foster laments.
He emphasises that this view stems from a lack of understanding.
“Jamaica people dem nowadays believe seh … is only dancehall alone is dem culture. Dem don’t know dem have other [aspects to their] culture. Dem don’t think about mento, calypso, kumina, and all a those things,” he says.
Carlton ‘Kya’ Walters, leader of the Kya Jonkonnu band in St Mary, sees the Jonkonnu parade as a spiritual link to his African roots. He explains to The Sunday Gleaner that the negative portrayal of Jonkonnu by Jamaica’s conservative Christian society has contributed to its decline.
MISCHARACTERISED AS DEMONIC
“One of the things today is the kind of label that is placed on Jonkonnu. The colonial masters wanted to get the attention of the people to focus on their agenda, which was Church and State, so they would label Jonkonnu as demonic and savage,” he explains.
He recalls a time when several Jonkonnu bands flourished in his rural parish, but now, his 12-member band is the only one remaining.
Thankfully, the demand for their performances remains steady. In addition to their annual Christmas parade, they perform at hotels and even weddings.
The performance fee, he discloses, can range between $155,000 and $170,000, which usually includes the cost to transport band members.
But Foster’s South West St Andrew Jonkonnu Group is not as fortunate.
“Nowadays we not coming out a lot. From this year start, this [is] about the fourth or the fifth time since we perform. People don’t want to pay, so everything is going right down,” Foster says.
He explains that preparing for a performance involves significant effort, including making costumes and arranging transportation, but the payment generally offered is between $40,000 and $100,000. Transportation alone, he says, can account for nearly half of what some people are willing to pay.
His band now has just 10 members, who rely on the group to supplement their income from day jobs, with each member requiring at least $5,000 per performance.
The lack of support for this cultural tradition is disheartening, Foster admits, but he remains motivated by his passion for it.
Walters shares a similar love for Jonkonnu and hopes to see it flourish again. To help, he teaches the tradition in schools across St Mary.
He’s heartened by the interest, noting that his band includes members as young as 14.
“More young people are interested in Jonkonnu. A lot of people, when we’re in the streets and they see it, they want to become a part of it. Children ask their parents to get permission to join the group,” he said.
CALL FOR MORE SUPPORT
While Walters works to ensure the tradition is passed on to future generations, Dr Sonjah Stanley Niaah, a senior lecturer in cultural studies at The University of the West Indies, Mona, believes the Government should provide institutional support for these bands.
“There should be mechanisms that support these bands,” she tells The Sunday Gleaner. “Capacity building ought to be afforded to them to be able to apply for grants, to be able to have access to support from the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, where they are given accelerated ways to outfit themselves, to support the members of the band and the community.”
Nicole Patrick Shaw, deputy executive director of the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), says the IOJ, which has a mandate to preserve Jamaica’s cultural heritage, regularly hosts exhibitions to highlight Jonkonnu.
“We do that through our African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica-Jamaica Memory Bank that does research on Jamaica’s intangible cultural heritage, so if it is that persons want to get information on those cultural forms, it is readily available,” she says.
The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission also offers support to these bands by giving them a space to host events, she adds.
But Niaah believes Jamaica should look to other Caribbean territories such as The Bahamas and Bermuda as examples of how it can support its masquerading culture.
“Traditions such as Jonkonnu are fundamental to Jamaican identity,” she says. “Jonkonnu and other traditions that we have inherited from our ancestors, essentially, we dishonour them by not preserving them, by not remembering the kinds of ways they had to suffer to even be able to practise things like Jonkonnu.”
How to contact them
You may reach Carlton ‘Kya’ Walters and his band at junkunno1986@gmail.com or 876-868-2344.
Rainford Foster and the South West St Andrew Jonkonnu band can be reached at 876-841-0439.